Advances in Appreciative Inquiry as an Organization Development
Intervention
(Published in the Organization Development Journal, Fall 1995 Vol.13, No.3, pp.14-22)
Gervase R. Bushe Ph.D.
Organization Development
Faculty of Business Administration
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, BC, Canada V5A 1S6
(604)291-4104 email: bushe@sfu.ca
Since Cooperrider & Srivastva's (1987) original article on appreciative inquiry there has
been a lot of excitement and experimentation with this new form of action research. The
technology of appreciative inquiry as a social research method and as an organization
development (OD) intervention are evolving differently. Here I will mainly focus on it as
an OD intervention. Currently there is no universally accepted method for doing an
appreciative inquiry and it is premature to offer a "recipe" for how to do it. There is,
however, a fairly well accepted set of parameters for distinguishing between what is and
is not a legitimate appreciative inquiry. In this paper I will describe the basics of this
technique and report on some innovations I and colleagues have experimented with to
extend the appreciative approach. First, however, an introduction to the theory behind the
technique.
What is Appreciative Inquiry?
Appreciative inquiry (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987), a theory of organizing and method
for changing social systems, is one of the more significant innovations in action research
in the past decade. Those who created action research in the 1950s were concerned with
creating a research method that would lead to practical results as well as the development
of new social theory. It was hoped that action research would be an important tool in
social change. A key emphasis of action researchers has been on involving their
"subjects" as co-researchers. Action research was and still is a cornerstone of
organization development practice.
While always controversial as a scientific method of inquiry, action research has recently
come under criticism as a method of organizational change and as a process for
developing new theory. In their seminal paper Cooperrider & Srivastva criticize the lack
of useful theory generated by traditional action research studies and contend that both the
method of action research and implicit theory of social organization are to blame. The
problem is that most action research projects use logical positivistic assumptions
(Sussman & Evered, 1978) ,which treats social and psychological reality as something
fundamentally stable, enduring, and "out there". Appreciative inquiry, however, is a
product of the socio-rationalist paradigm (Gergen, 1982, 1990) which treats social and
psychological reality as a product of the moment, open to continuous reconstruction.
Cooperrider and Srivastva argue that there is nothing inherently real about any particular
social form, no transcultural, everlasting, valid principles of social organization to be
uncovered. While logical positivism assumes that social phenomena are sufficiently
enduring, stable and replicable to allow for generalizations, socio-rationalism contends
that social order is fundamentally unstable. "Social phenomena are guided by cognitive
heuristics, limited only by the human imagination: the social order is a subject matter
capable of infinite variation through the linkage of ideas and action". (Cooperrider and
Srivastva, 1987, p.139). Socio-rationalists argue that the theories we hold, our beliefs
about social systems, have a powerful effect on the nature of social "reality". Not only do
we see what we believe, but the very act of believing it creates it. From this point of
view, the creation of new and evocative theories of groups, organizations, and societies,
are a powerful way to aid in their change and development.
Like most post-modernists, Cooperrider & Srivastva argue that logical positivistic
assumptions trap us in a rear-view world and methods based on these assumptions tend to
(re)create the social realities they purport to be studying. Further, they argue that action
researchers tend to assume that their purpose is to solve a problem. Groups and
organizationsare treated not only as if they have problems, but as if they are problems to
be "solved". Cooperrider and Srivastva contend that this "problem-oriented" view of
organizing and inquiry reduces the possibility of generating new theory, and new images
of social reality, that might help us transcend current social forms. What if, instead of
seeing organizations as problems to be solved, we saw them as miracles to be
appreciated? How would our methods of inquiry and our theories of organizing be
different?
Appreciative inquiry "...refers to both a search for knowledge and a theory of intentional
collective action which are designed to help evolve the normative vision and will of a
group, organization, or society as a whole" (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987, p.159).
Cooperrider makes the theory of change embedded in appreciative inquiry explicit in a
later paper on the affirmative basis of organizing (Cooperrider, 1990). In this paper
Cooperrider proffers the "heliotropic hypothesis" - that social forms evolve toward the
"light"; that is, toward images that are affirming and life giving. In essence his argument
is that all groups, organizations, communities or societies have images of themselves that
underlay self-organizing processes and that social systems have a natural tendency to
evolve toward the most positive images held by their members. Conscious evolution of
positive imagery, therefore, is a viable option for changing the social system as a whole.
One of the ironies Cooperrider helps us to see is that the greatest obstacle to the wellbeing of an ailing group is the affirmative projection that currently guides the group. To
affirm means to 'hold firm' and it "...is precisely the strength of affirmation, the degree of
belief or faith invested, that allows the image to carry out its heliotropic task"
(Cooperrider, 1990, p.120). When groups find that attempts to fix problems create more
problems, or the same problems never go away, it is a clear signal of the inadequacy of
the group's current affirmative projection. Groups, therefore, do not need to be fixed; they
need to be affirmed and "...every new affirmative projection of the future is a
consequence of an appreciative understanding of the past or present" (p.120).
Appreciative inquiry, as a method of changing social systems, is an attempt to generate a
collective image of a new and better future by exploring the best of what is and has been.
These new images, or "theories", create a pull effect that generates evolution in social
forms. The four principles Cooperrider and Srivastva (1987, p.160) articulate for an
action research that can create new and better images are that research should begin with
appreciation, should be applicable, should be provocative, and should be collaborative.
The basic process of appreciative inquiry is to begin with a grounded observation of the
"best of what is", then through vision and logic collaboratively articulate "what might
be", ensuring the consent of those in the system to "what should be" and collectively
experimenting with "what can be" . One significant published research study that used an
appreciative inquiry methodology looked at the processes of organizing that are used by
international non-governmental organizations (Johnson & Cooperrider, 1991).
Appreciative Inquiry as a Method of Change
An appreciative inquiry intervention can be thought of as consisting of these three parts:
Discovering the best of.... Appreciative interventions begin with a search for the best
examples of organizing and organization within the experience of organizational
members.
Understanding what creates the best of.... The inquiry seeks to create insight into the
forces that lead to superior performance, as defined by organizational members. What is
it about the people, the organization, and the context that creates peak experiences at
work?
Amplifying the people and processes who best exemplify the best of.... Through the
process of the inquiry itself, the elements that contribute to superior performance are
reinforced and amplified.
The emphasis in my approach is on designing inquiry methods that amplify the values
the system is seeking to actualize during the all phases of the inquiry process. I believe
this is one key feature that distinguishes appreciative inquiry from other interventions.
How to actually do that in practice is not so easy but as the pace of environmental change
accelerates, we must find more rapid change processes for organizational renewal. The
great promise of appreciative inquiry is that it will generate self-sustaining momentum
within an organization toward actualizing the values that lead to superior performance.
The original form of appreciative inquiry developed by David Cooperrider involved a
bottom-up interview process where almost all organizational members were interviewed
to uncover the "life-giving forces" in the organization. People were asked to recall times
they felt "most alive, most vital, most energized at work" and were then questioned about
those incidents. The interview data were then treated much the same as any qualitative
data set; through content analysis the consultants looked for what people in the
organization valued and what conditions led to superior performance. This analysis was
fed back into a large planning group which was charged with developing "provocative
propositions". Provocative propositions were statements of organizational aspiration and
intent, based on the analysis of the organization at it's very best. These propositions were
then validated by organizational members along two dimensions: 1) how much does this
statement capture our values? and 2) how much are we like this? Nothing more was done
with the data, analysis or propositions. John Carter of the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland,
one of the early implementors of this approach, counsels against using the propositions as
a set of standards or goals to then begin problem-solving around (Carter, 1989). Using the
gestalt therapy notion of figure-ground, John argues that most inquiry methods make
something figural, focusing attention. Appreciative inquiry, he claims, creates ground. By
coming to agreement on a set of provocative propositions, people have a compelling
vision of the organization at its best and this in itself motivates new behaviors. People
will take initiative and act differently without an action plan because the provocative
propositions align organizational vision with employee's internal sense of what is
important.
As a planned change technique, this approach lacked focus and didn't do as good a job of
amplification as many of us would like. I continue to experiment with new techniques for
generating discovery, understanding, and amplification. Here is a brief rundown on my
current thinking.
A) Discovering
The initial appreciative inquiries attempted to study organizations as a whole. More
recent interventions have begun to limit themselves to a few issues. This appears to make
the process more manageable and understandable to others. Now, unless we are trying to
help a company develop a future vision for the entire organization, appreciative inquiries
focus on strategic human resource issues like empowerment, teamwork, leadership,
customer service. Appreciative inquiry may have applications for other, non-HR issues
but I don't know of anyone who has tried it (e.g., how to best organize an information
system). One of the more interesting recent applications has been with gender issues in
organizations. Marjorie Schiller of Quincy, Massachusetts has been working with
corporations that found that traditional approaches to dealing with sexual harassment in
the workplace (e.g., hire a harassment coordinator, gather survey data, do a lot of
training) only resulted in more reported sexual harassment! Using an appreciative inquiry
approach, teams of men and women are studying what co-gender work experiences are
like at their very best and this seems to be having remarkable results.
After a couple of failures I learned that doing an "appreciative interview" is not as easy as
it looks. Simply talking about one's "peak" experience can easily degenerate into social
banter and cliché-ridden interaction. The hallmark of successful appreciative interviews
seems to be that the interviewee has at least one new insight into what made it a peak
experience. I have noticed a bundle of behaviours that seem to distinguish those who are
good and poor at appreciative interviewing (Bushe 1997). The key seems to be
suspending one's own assumptions and not being content with superficial explanations
given by others; to question the obvious and to do this in more of a conversational, selfdisclosing kind of way than is normally taught in interviewing courses. There seem to be
real limits to who can do this well and I have not been able to train people quickly (1 day)
to be able to attend to others appreciatively. It appears that one of the early assumptions,
that we could teach organizational members to run the data collection process by
themselves, does not work as well as we'd hoped. People who have the basic ability to
listen to others "generously", however, can be taught appreciative inquiry in about a day
and a half. I have found the best results from teaming insiders with outsiders and doing
paired interviews. David Cooperrider has noticed that using younger insiders to interview
organizational elders results in a very special energy and the quality of images and data
seems better.
I've come to the conclusion that getting the stories that people have about the topic is
what is most important. Researchers and other linear thinkers have a tendency to want to
generate abstract lists and propositional statements out of the interviews and this needs to
be curtailed during the interview process or the same old lists and propositions get
recycled. Fresh images and insight come from exploring the real stories people have
about themselves and others at their best.
We've also found that people love to be interviewed appreciatively. Recently a team I
was leading completed a series of appreciative interviews about leadership with the
senior executives of a major telecommunications company. As you can imagine, many
were loath to give up any time in their busy schedules to be interviewed. We asked for an
hour. Most interviews actually lasted two and a half hours, with the executives canceling
their appointments and just wanting talk on and on.
B) Understanding
It has been necessary to find ways of making the data useful for group interpretation.
Large data sets on organizational peak experiences required more time and effort than
busy managers could afford. We've experimented with structuring the data collection and
reporting to reduce the ambiguity of the data and make it easier for large groups to work
with. The main innovation has been the inquiry matrix (Bushe & Pitman, 1991). Prior to
data collection, senior managers decide what elements of organizing they want to amplify
in their organization (e.g., teamwork, quality, leadership), and an organizational model
that they feel best captures the major categories of organizing (e.g., technology, structure,
rewards, etc.). A matrix is then created of elements by categories. For example, there
would be a cell for teamwork & technology, teamwork & structure, quality & technology,
quality & structure, and so on. The data collection effort focuses on each of the cells.
More importantly, the matrix focuses the analysis of the data and the generation of
provocative propositions.
I have found that the quality of new understandings and insights created during an
appreciative inquiry is strongly effected by the quality of stories and insights generated
during the interviews. Unless new understandings arise during the initial appreciative
interviews, later analyses may simply recreate the initial mental models people come to
the analysis with. Without important new insights, the process loses energy fast and leads
to cliched propositions. Appreciative inquiry really challenges those doing the analysis to
leave their preconceptions behind and approach the data with "the eyes of a child".
Write-ups of the interviews are very important. I've found that detailed recounts of the
stories and most interesting quotes are what is needed and that these are best written in
the first person. The output of appreciative interviews are a series of stories and quotes
written in the language of those who told them.
What is normally the "data analysis" stage of action research needs to be done totally
differently in an appreciative inquiry. I no longer call it "analysis". I haven't found a great
term for it yet but I've used 'proalysis' and 'synergalysis'. At this point in an appreciative
inquiry I want to get as many people as possible reading the most important interviews
and stories in order to stimulate their thinking about the appreciative topic. Then I try to
orchestrate one or more meetings where organizational members and consultants try to go
beyond what they were told by the interviewees to craft propositional statements about
the appreciative topic that will capture people's energy and excitement. We're not trying
to extract themes from the data or categorize responses and add them up. We're trying to
generate new theory that will have high face value to members of the organization. What
makes this legitimate research, I believe, is that we go back to those we interviewed with
these propositions and ask them if we have captured the spirit, if not the letter, of the
meaning of the interviews. If they say yes, then I believe we have generated new theory
based on something more real than simply imagination and good intentions.
C) Amplification
I believe that as a social intervention device, the quality of the dialogue generated is
much more important than the "validity" of the synergalysis of the data. Studying the best
of what is creates excitement and energy and this is a key part of the amplification
process. I and others have been trying to find ways to further amplify what is exciting and
energizing for people and effective for their organizations.
The number of people involved in all phases of the appreciative inquiry has obvious
implications for this. I would like to experiment with getting very large numbers of
people into something the size of a hockey arena to do consensual creation and validation
of provocative propositions but to date have not found a client system willing to do this.
Once a set of propositions have been developed, they can be "tested" through a survey in
the organization. The survey can ask to what extent they believe the proposition to be an
important component of the topic under study and to what extent they believe the
organization exemplifies the proposition. Simply filling out such a survey can do a lot
toward spreading the ideas throughout the organization. Then communicating the results
of the survey showing the strength of consensus about the importance of each proposition
gives organizational members license to do more of it in their everyday work..
One major innovation has been to create thematic feed-back documents that identify who
is giving the "quote" and the context the quote was given in. Instead of lists of
anonymous quotes to illustrate themes found in conventional feedback reports, people get
to read what their fellow employees are saying about their best experiences. You can
imagine how much more dialogue and energy this creates.
Tom Pitman of Grand Rapids, Michigan and Geoff Hulin of Santa Cruz, California have
experimented with video-taping the interviews and editing them into short, focused
pieces on different themes. As a feedback device, videotape clips have proved to generate
a great deal more energy and shared imagery than written reports. Again, the goal here is
to create appreciative dialogues about the issues under study that result in new affirming
images.. The opportunities here continue to increase as new applications that marry video
and computer technologies proliferate.
Where to next
We may find that the notion of "appreciative process" (Bushe & Pitman, 1991) as a
consulting and change strategy has a larger and more lasting impact than large scale
appreciative inquiries. My personal consulting style has undergone a radical
transformation in the past 6 years as I have struggled to adopt an appreciative stance in
my work. Now I pay attention to what is working well, the qualities of leadership or
group process that I want to see more of, and try to amplify them when I see them. This is
in direct contrast to my training where I learned to see what was missing and point that
out. In the past I focused on understanding the failures and pathologies of leadership and
organization. I thought that awareness was the first step in development and so I felt it
was my job as an OD consultant to make people aware of just how bad things really
were. Now I am focusing on helping people become aware of how good things are, on the
genius in themselves and others, on the knowledge and abilities they already have, on
examples of the future in the present. From this stance I am finding that change happens
more easily, people don't get as bogged down in uncertainty or despair and energy runs
more freely.
The appreciative lens has opened up a new vista for viewing and understanding the
process of change in human systems. For example, I developed a form of appreciative
inquiry for team building, experimentally tested it, and found it significantly improved a
team's process and performance (Bushe & Coetzer, 1995). The method, as used in the
experiments, goes as follows:
First, group members are asked to recall the best team experience they have ever been a
part of. Even for those who have had few experiences of working with others in groups,
there is a 'best' experience. Each group member is asked, in turn, to describe the
experience while the rest of the group is encouraged to be curious and engage in
dialogue with the focal person. The facilitator encourages members to set aside their
clichés and preconceptions, get firmly grounded in their memory of the actual
experience, and fully explore what about themselves, the situation, the task, and others
made this a "peak" experience. Once all members have exhausted their exploration, the
facilitator asks the group, on the basis of what they have just discussed, to list and
develop a consensus on the attributes of highly effective groups. The intervention
concludes with the facilitator inviting members to publicly acknowledge anything they
have seen others in the group do that has helped the group be more like any of the listed
attributes
This research has stimulated new group theory and new change theory. Graeme Coetzer,
at Simon Fraser University, and I are working on a theory of "group image" that may
offer insights into how groups function and dysfunction. I believe that the most important
next steps for appreciative inquiry will be theoretical breakthroughs in understanding
leadership, facilitation, and change processes in social systems. After this will come new
techniques.
REFERENCES
Bushe, G.R. (1997) Attending to Others: Interviewing Appreciatively. Vancouver, BC:
Discovery & Design Inc.
Bushe, G.R. & Coetzer, G. (1995) Appreciative inquiry as a team development
intervention: A controlled experiment. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 31:1, 1931.
Bushe, G.R. & Pitman, T. (1991) "Appreciative process: A method for transformational
change". OD Practitioner, September, 1-4.
Carter, J. (1989) Talk given at the Social Innovations Global Management conference,
Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Ohio
November 13-17.
Cooperrider, D.L. (1990) Positive image, positive action: The affirmative basis of
organizing. In S.Srivastva & D.L. Cooperrider (Eds.), Appreciative Management and
Leadership (pp.91-125). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Cooperrider, D.L. & Srivastva, S. (1987) "Appreciative inquiry in organizational life". In
R. Woodman & W. Pasmore (eds.) Research in Organizational Change and
Development: Volume 1 (pp.129-169). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press,
Gergen, K. (1982) Toward Transformation in Social Knowledge. New York: SpringVerlag.
Gergen, K. (1990) Affect and organization in postmodern society. In S. Srivastva & D.L.
Cooperrider (eds.), Appreciative Management and Leadership (pp.153-174). San
Francisco, Jossey-Bass.
Johnson, P.C. & Cooperrider, D.L. (1991) Finding a path with heart: Global social
change organizations and their challenge for the field of organization development. In R.
Woodman & W.Pasmore (eds.) Research in Organizational Change and Development:
Volume 5 (pp.223-284). Greenwich CT: JAI Press.
Sussman, G.I & Evered, R.D. (1978) An assessment of the scientific merits of action
research. Administrative Science Quarterly, 23, 582-603.
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